The present invention relates to an axle unit in particular for use in commercial vehicles.
Axle units are known from the prior art insofar as an axle tube, which is frequently a rigid tube, is mounted or secured on the frame of the commercial vehicle in a sprung or damped manner via a link arrangement, wherein a vehicle wheel or a multiplicity of vehicle wheels is or are mounted rotatably in turn on the axle tube. The connecting region between axle tube and the longitudinal link here is a portion of the chassis suspension of the commercial vehicle that is particularly heavily loaded and in particular subject to periodic load changes, and there have been many attempts in the past to adapt the connecting region between longitudinal link and axle tube to said heavy loads. Many axle units have been known in this connection from the prior art, in which over-dimensioning and therefore a very high weight of the axle unit have had to be accepted as a consequence of designing the connecting region between axle unit and link unit to have greater security against fatigue fractures or similar damage. There is therefore a need for improvement in the region of the connection between the longitudinal link and the axle tube of a commercial vehicle wheel suspension in order in particular to reduce the weight of the axle unit and at the same time to permit sufficient strength values and simple production.
The object of the present invention is to provide an axle unit which can be produced simply and achieves particularly high strength values for the connecting region between an axle tube and a link element and also has a low component weight.